THE POETRY OF 
PATHOS ^ DELIGHT 




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( (fV-e^/Ty J/ci/&''y^<r^Z. 



THE POETRY OF 

PATHOS aP DELIGHT 

From the Works of 
COVENTRY PATMORE 

•I 
Passages Selected by 
ALICE MEYNELL 

WITH A POETEAIT AFTER J. S. SARGENT, A.E.A. 



NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
London: William Heinemann 



MDCCCXCVI 






D.m. 

8 Tl' . 



/^9 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

This book does not offer a selection in the usual 
sense. The poetry of a master is selected before 
it is written, and before it is conceived ; and the 
mind that conceives it is selected. Mr. Coventry 
Patmore's art and labour do but second that 
original distinction. Therefore it is hardly neces- 
sary to say that my intention has not been to 
make a collection of " best passages." What has 
been intended is to collect passages in which the 
poet has dealt with two things — delight and 
soiTow, those human and intelligible passions to 
which all real poetry has access, but which this 
poetry touches so close as to be mingled with 
them and changed into them. 

So to offer great poetry to the natural human 
sensibility, should be to gain for the poet's whole 
work new readers. I confess that is my motive. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
Because of their youth, which has not allowed 
them to read very much, or because of accident, 
there may be many readers still to gain. Among 
them may be the fittest — not the less fit because 
they have been for a time under the influence of a 
fashion for inordinate haste, or for inordinate 
leisure, of appreciation. Mr. Patmore's greatest 
work is neither so new as to gratify the eagerness 
of one fashion, nor so old as to flatter the reluctance 
of the other. It is a work of the beginning of the 
last quarter of our century. It is dated later than 
Mr. Swinburne's best, for instance, but it had its 
place in literature before the present young love 
of poetry had taken life. Again, many poets are 
heard because a chorus of contemporaries sings 
with them and like them. Mr. Coventry Patmore's 
voice is single in his day, and single in our 
literature. It makes part of no choir loud by 
numbers, and so it needs an attentive ear. To 
that attentive ear it sounds alone, as the divinest 
voice of our time. 

There is a dignity in Mr. Patmore's reputation 
(attendant on the exceeding dignity of his art) 
that might be offended — though it could not be 
vi 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

injured — by officious praises. But it is not inop- 
portune to say thus much : Readers of this book 
and of the entire poems may be promised a perfect 
respite from the tedious controversy as to matter and 
manner, thought and expression. They shall not 
be invited to attend to discussions as to the relative 
importance of two things that in truth have no 
high importance if they can be divided so as to be 
merely related. The dispute is an inconsiderable 
one ; it is perfectly opportune in the criticism of 
all jx)etry below a certain perfectly definite standard 
of art, and there only. Above that standard, 
thought and form are not opposed, nor merely 
related ; they are one. It is not difficult to make 
a definition of classical poetry, if classical poetry 
may rightly be defined as all poetry — be its thought 
what it may, and its form what it may — in which 
thought and form are one. Classical poetry of 
every age — and every age has had a little — is that 
in which there is no antithesis, in which there is 
more than a bond — union and fusion. The classical 
poem may be a mere " To Althea from Prison," or 
even a mere ''To Blossoms." In the small classic 
the word is fused with its fancy, and in the great 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

it is fused with its passion ; and the greater the 
passion the greater the splendour of the fire of 
that fusion — the " integrity of fire." 

The more essential passages of Mr. Coventry 
Patmore's much earlier work — The Angel in the 
House — are classic, and very high in that noble 
rank. He plays with this power of his art in the 
brief metre, the symmetrical stanza, and the collo- 
quial phrase. He has here accepted the dailiest 
things and made them spirit and fire. There has 
been something said against these colloquialisms ; 
and indeed they would not be tolerable in hands 
less austere and sweet. The newest Philistine, 
who is afraid of the reproach of Philistinism, who 
denies Philistinism in the name of a Philistine, and 
ultimately receives a Philistine's reward, has been 
known to make light of some of Mr. Patmore's 
couplets, which he finds too "domestic." But 
such " domestic " couplets as those in " Olympus," 
for instance, are a smiling defiance of Philistinism. 
So are the brilliant stanzas, made of life, sense, 
and spirit, in which the very accessories, — the 
spoilt accessories — of a modem English wedding 
are rendered grave and blithe, and the bridegroom 
viii 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

is restored to the dignity of the sun. Mr. Patmore 
makes the Wedding Sermon (at the close of The 
Angel in the House) the improbable opportunity for 
the finest wit and thought, tenderness, mystery, 
and celestial knowledge. One of the things that 
have baffled the trivial in these early poems is 
probably what they have taken for triviality or 
artlessness in the metre as well as in the word. 
Locks and bars and bolts are less secure for the 
locking away of a poet's privacy, than is his 
unintelligible candour. In his solemnity the world 
recognises a mystery ; but by his frank play and 
simplicity it is sometimes baffled and misled into 
disregard. 

The Odes are greater than the earlier poems, 
because they have greater capacity for the quality 
that is in all Mr. Patmore's work. As for their 
metre, it is their very poetry. They move with 
indescribable dignity, and with the freedom of the 
spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth. With 
absolute art the poet sighs, or pauses, or recovers 
breath, in the " irregular " line, with an effect of 
infinite liberty and pathos. "Thou hearest the 
sound thereof" One of Mr. Patmore's worthiest 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

contemporaries has said that the Odes are almost 
too mournful to be read, because they are so close 
to the thought : " the verse attending on the 
thought, and having no independent life of its 
own." This appreciation is insufficient, for there 
is union rather than " attendance ; " but it ex- 
presses hastily the effect of this most sensitive and 
vital line — precisely the effect, which, in another 
art, results from the phrases of a Parsifal. Take 
the regular stanza as answering to a symme- 
trical melody ; you will perceive that neither 
stanza nor tune can be so immediately sensitive as 
are those sentences of music, and those lines of the 
ode in the hands of a master. No other metrical 
form could be so free and so living a communi- 
cation. 

What is here to be communicated is vital and 
mortal pathos and felicity. Even as far as the 
reader has capacity to perceive that passion, he is 
aware that it is greater than his experience, and 
he confesses that it was uttered out of a greater 
capacity than his. Compassion with that greater 
passion is a high and worthy manner of admiration. 
It may be the " ten*or " that Aristotle joined to 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

'' pity." Compassion in the highest degree is the 
divinest form of rehgion. The compassion of the 
slighter acquaintance with son-ow for the greater, 
and of the smaller capacity for the vaster, is a 
remorse of tenderness, lowliness, and respect, the 
paradox of worship. 

Dexterity — the lower technique — may become 
habitual, and the more brilliant kinds of habit are 
often mistaken for the actual intention of great 
art ; but great art is never habitual. Art has a 
perpetually living intention. All the lines and 
passages here gathered together are proofs of this 
instancy of art. And they are chosen as instant 
communications of the two passions of happiness 
and pain, because these are the most simple. It 
would have been easy to represent Mr. Patmore 
by an anthology proving him the poet of wit, or 
the poet of beauty, or the poet of indignation. 
But the most classic subject of classic poetry is the 
most intelligible in kind, however enormous in 
degree — felicity and infelicity. Of melancholy — 
the black humour — none of Mr. Patmore's work 
has a sign. 



XI 



CONTENTS 

To the Unknown Eros Tage i 

England 5 

Remnant of Honour 8 
Victory in Defeat ' <^ 

Saint Valentine^ s Day 12 

The Wedding Sermon 15 

The Paragon i6 

The Rose of the World 18 

The Lover 21 



Heaven and Earth 
The Letter 
The Revelation 



23 

27 



The Doubt 28 

Security 29 

7"/^^ 5/)/W>V j5'/5r>$j 30 

The Maid 31 

Acceptance 32 

Betrothed 33 

xiii 



CONTENTS 

The Dance Tage 34 

Entreaty 36 

The Revulsion ;^y 

Praises 40 

Marriage 41 

The Rosy Bosoni'd Hours 42 

Wind and Wave 45 

Be at a 47 

If I were Dead 48 

Deliciee Sapientia de Amore 49 

Mignonne 55 

Mildred 57 

Rejected 58 

Z,^?!/^ /» 7>/2rj 59 

Denied 60 

Loe'^'/ Will be Done 61 

F/rj/ Ztjz/^ Remembered 62 

^a;tfj 66 

Rachel 72 

7"/^^ DtPzV^ (?/ One I Knew 73 

/z? the Woods 75 

Z^^/^ 77 

Her Counsel 78 

^/c/z//? D^i 79 

^<7»^i 82 

xiv 





CONTENTS 


To the Body 


Tage 83 


Auras of Delight 


^(i 


Psyche 


88 


Dawn 


89 


The Edge of Bliss 


90 


Eros 


91 


Amelia 


92 


After Storm 


96 


Venus and Death 


98 


Semele 


99 


The Married Lover 


100 


The Amaranth 


102 


The Letters 


103 


One Spring 


109 


Ma Belle 


III 


A Farewell , 


112 


Departure 


114 


The t^zalea 


116 


Eurydice 


118 


The Day after To-Morroyv 


121 


Tired Memory 


124 


The Toys 


128 


Winter 


130 


VJllegro 


^11 


J: Retrospect 


136 



TO THE UN- 
KNOWN EROS. 



What rumour'd heavens are these 

Which not a poet sings, 

O, Unknown Eros ? What this breeze 

Of sudden wings 

Speeding at far returns of time from interstellar 
space 

To fan my very face. 

And gone as fleet. 

Through delicatest ether feathering soft their soli- 
tary beat. 

With ne'er a light plume dropp'd, nor any trace 

To speak of whence they came, or whither they 
depart ? 

And why this palpitating heart. 

This blind and unrelated joy. 

This meaningless desire, ^ 

That moves me like the Child 

Who in the flushing darkness troubled lies. 

Inventing lonely prophecies. 



TO THE UNKNOWN EROS 

Which even to his Mother mild 

He dares not tell ; 

To which himself is infidel ; 

His heart not less on fire 

With dreams impossible as wildest Arab Tale, 

(So thinks the boy,) 

With dreams that turn him red and pale. 

Yet less impossible and wild 

Than those which bashful Love, in his own way 
and hour. 

Shall duly bring to flower ? 

O, Unknown Eros, sire of awful bliss. 

What portent and what Delphic word, 

Such as in foi-m of snake forebodes the bird. 

Is this ? 

In me life's even flood 

What eddies thus ? 

What in its ruddy orbit lifts the blood. 

Like a perturbed moon of Uranus, 

Reaching to some great world in ungauged dark- 
ness hid ; 

And whence 

This rapture of the sense 

Which, by thy whisper bid. 

Reveres with obscure rite and sacramental sign 

A bond I know not of nor dimly can divine ; 



TO THE UNKNOWN EROS 
This subject loyalty which longs 
For chains and thongs 
Woven of gossamer and adamant. 
To bind me to my unguess'd want. 
And so to lie. 
Between those quivering plumes that thro' fine 

ether pant. 
For hopeless, sweet eternity ? 
What God unhonour'd hitherto in songs, 
Or which, that now 
Forgettest the disguise 

That Gods must wear who visit human eyes. 
Art Thou ? 

Thou art not Amor ; or, if so, yon pyre. 
That waits the willing victim, flames with vestal 

fire; 
Nor mooned Queen of maids ; or, if thou'rt she. 
Ah, then, from Thee 

Let Bride and Bridegroom learn what kisses be ! 
In what veil'd hymn 
Or mystic dance 

Would he that were thy Priest advance 
Thine earthly praise, thy glory limn ? 
Say, should the feet that feel thy thought 
In double-center'd circuit run. 
In that compulsive focus. Nought, 



TO THE UNKNOWN EROS 

In this a furnace like the sun ; 

And might some note of thy renown 

And high behest 

Thus in enigma be expressed : 

' There lies the crown 

Which all thy longing cures. 

Refuse it. Mortal, that it may be yours ! 

It is a Spirit, though it seems red gold ; 

And such may no man, but by shunning, hold. 

Refuse it, till refusing be despair ; 

And thou shalt feel the phantom in thy hAir.' 



ENGLAND 



Lo, weary of the greatness of her ways. 

There Hes my Land, with hasty pulse and 

hard. 
Her ancient beauty marr'd. 
And, in her cold and aimless roving sight. 
Horror of light ; 

Sole vigour left in her last lethargy. 
Save when, at bidding of some dreadful breath. 
The rising death 
Rolls up with force ; 
And then the furiously gibbering corse 
Shakes, panglessly convuls'd, and sightless stares. 
Whilst one Physician pours in rousing wines. 
One anodynes. 
And one declares 
That nothing ails it but the pains of growth. 

My last look loth 
Is taken ; and I turn, with the reHef 
Of knowing that my life-long hope and grief 



ENGLAND 

Are surely vain. 

To that unshapen time to come, when She, 

A dim, heroic Nation long since dead. 

The foulness of her agony forgot. 

Shall all benignly shed 

Through ages vast 

The ghostly grace of her transfigured past 

Over the present, harassed and forlorn. 

Of nations yet unborn ; 

And this shall be the lot 

Of those who, in the bird-voice and the 

blast 
Of her omniloquent tongue. 
Have truly sung 
Or greatly said. 
To shew as one 

With those who have best done. 
And be as rays. 

Thro' the still altering world, around her 
changeless head. 
Therefore no 'plaint be mine 
Of listeners none. 

No hope of render'd use or proud reward. 
In hasty times and hard ; 
But chants as of a lonely thrush's throat. 
At latest eve, ' 



ENGLAND 

That does in each calm note 

Both joy and grieve ; 

Notes few and strong and fine. 

Gilt with sweet day's decline. 

And sad with promise of a different sun. 



REMNANT 
OF HONOUR 



Remnant of Honour, brooding in the dark 

Over your bitter cark. 

Staring, as Rispah stared, astonied seven days 

Upon the corpses of so many sons. 

Who loved her once. 

Dead in the dim and Uon-haunted ways, 

Who could have dreamt 

That times should come like these ! 



VIC TORY 
IN DEFEAT 



Ah, God, alas. 

How soon it came to pass 

The sweetness melted from thy barbed hook 

Which I so simply took ; 

And I lay bleeding on the bitter land, 

Afraid to stir against thy least command. 

But losing all my pleasant life-blood, whence 

Force should have been heart's frailty to withstand. 

Life is not life at all without delight. 

Nor has it any might ; 

And better than the insentient heart and brain 

Is sharpest pain ; 

And better for the moment seems it to rebel, 

If the great Master, from his lifted seat. 

Ne'er whispers to the wearied servant ' Well ! ' 

Yet what returns of love did I endure. 

When to be pardoned seem'd almost more sweet 

Than aye to have been pure ! 

But day still faded to disastrous night. 



VICTORY IN DEFEAT 

And thicker darkness changed to feebler light. 

Until forgiveness, without stint renew 'd. 

Was now no more with loving tears imbued. 

Vowing no more offence. 

Not less to thine Unfaithful didst thou cry, 

'Come back, poor Child ; be all as 'twas before.' 

But I, 

' No, no ; I will not promise any more ! 

Yet, when I feel my hour is come to die. 

And so I am secured of continence. 

Then may I say, though haply then in vain, 

" My only, only Love, O, take me back again ! " ' 

Thereafter didst thou smite 
So hard that, for a space. 
Uplifted seem'd Heav'n's everlasting door. 
And I indeed the darling of thy grace. 
But, in some dozen changes of the moon, 
A bitter mockery seem'd thy bitter boon. 
The broken pinion was no longer sore. 
Again, indeed, I woke 
Under so dread a stroke 
That all the strength it left within my heart 
Was just to ache and turn, and then to turn and 

ache. 
And some weak sign of war unceasingly to make. 
And here I lie, 

lO 



VICTORY IN DEFEAT 
With no one near to mark. 
Thrusting Hell's phantoms feebly in the dark. 
And still at point more utterly to die. 
O God, how long ! 

Put forth indeed thy powerful right hand. 
While time is yet. 
Or never shall I see the blissful land ! 

Thus I : then God, in pleasant speech and strong 
(Which soon I shall forget) : 
' The man who, though his fights be all defeats. 
Still fights. 
Enters at last 

The heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets 
With glory more, and more triumphant rites 
Than always-conquering Joshua's, when his blast 
The frighted walls of Jericho down cast ; 
And, lo, the glad surprise 
Of peace beyond surmise. 
More than in common Saints, for ever in his eyes. ' 



II 



SAINT VALEN- 
TINE^S DAY 



Well dost thou. Love, thy solemn Feast to hold 
In vestal February; 
Not rather choosing out some rosy day 
From the rich coronet of the coming May, 
When all things meet to marry ! 

O, quick, praevernal Power 
That signairst punctual through the sleepy mould 
The Snowdrop's time to flower. 
Fair as the rash oath of virginity 
Which is first-love's first cry ; 
O, Baby Spring, 

That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth 
A month before the birth ; 
Whence is the peaceful poignancy. 
The joy contrite. 

Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight. 
That burthens now the breath of everything. 
Though each one sighs as if to each alone 
The cherish'd pang were known ? 



12 



SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY 

At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart. 

With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day's 

heart; 
In evening's hush 

About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush ; 
The hill with like remorse 

Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course ; 
The fisher's drooping skiff 
In yonder sheltering bay ; 
The choughs that call about the shining cliff; 
The children, noisy in the setting ray ; 
Own the sweet season, each thing as it may ; 
Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace 
In me increase ; 
And tears arise 

Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes. 
And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss. 
Ask for Love's bounty, ah, much more than bliss ! 

Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet 
Of dear Desire electing his defeat ? 
Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope 
Uttering first-love's first cry. 
Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh, 
Love's natural hope ? 

Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury ! 
Behold, all-amorous May, 

13 



SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY \ 

With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows. 

Avoids thee of thy vows ! 

Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near. 

To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere ? 

Forget thy foohsh words ; 

Go to her summons gay. 

Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fill'd, 

Ev'n as a nest with birds 

After the old ones by the hawk are kill'd. 

Well dost thou. Love, to celebrate 
The noon of thy soft ecstasy. 
Or e'er it be too late. 
Or e'er the Snowdrop die ! 



14 



THE WED- 
DING SERMON 



The truths of Love are like the sea 

For clearness and for mystery. 

Of that sweet love which, startling, wakes 

Maiden and Youth, and mostly breaks 

The word of promise to the ear, 

But keeps it, after many a year. 

To the full spirit, how shall I speak ? 

My memoiy with age is weak. 

And I for hopes do oft suspect 

The things I seem to recollect. 

Yet who but must remember well 

'Twas this made heaven intelligible 

As motive, though 'twas small the power 

The heart might have, for even an hour. 

To hold possession of the height 

Of nameless pathos and delight ! 



IS 



THE PARAGON 



When I behold the skies aloft 

Passing the pageantry of dreams, 
The cloud whose bosom, cygnet-soft, 

A couch for nuptial Juno seems. 
The ocean broad, the mountains bright, 

The shadowy vales with feeding herds, 
I from my l3rre the music smite. 

Nor want for justly matching words. 
All forces of the sea and air. 

All interests of hill and plain, 
I so can sing, in seasons fair. 

That who hath felt may feel again. 
Elated oft by such free songs, 

I think with utterance free to raise 
That hymn for which the whole world longs, 

A worthy hymn in woman's praise ; 
A hymn bright-noted like a ^bird's. 

Arousing these song-sleepy times 

i6 



THE PARAGON 

With rhapsodies of perfect words. 

Ruled by returning kiss of rhymes. 
But when I look on her and hope 

To tell with joy what I admire. 
My thoughts He cramp'd in narrow scope. 

Or in the feeble birth expire ; 
No mystery of well-woven speech. 

No simplest phrase of tenderest fall. 
No liken'd excellence can reach 

Her, the most excellent of all. 
The best half of creation's best. 

Its heart to feel, its eye to see. 
The crown and complex of the rest. 

Its aim and its epitome. 
Nay, might I utter my conceit, 

'Twerc after all a voilgar song. 
For she's so simply, subtly sweet. 

My deepest rapture does her wrong. 



17 



THE ROSE OF 
THE WORLD 



Lo. when the Lord made North and South, 

And sun and moon ordained. He, 
Forthbringing each by word of mouth 

In order of its dignity. 
Did man from the crude clay express 

By sequence, and, all else decreed. 
He form'd the woman ; nor might less 

Than Sabbath such a work succeed. 
And still with favour singled out, 

Marr'd less than man by mortal fall. 
Her disposition is devout. 

Her countenance angelical ; 
The best things that the best believe 

Are in her face so kindly writ 
The faithless, seeing her, conceive 

Not only heaven, but hope of it ; 
No idle thought her instinct shrouds. 

But fancy chequers settled sense. 
Like alteration of the clouds 

i8 



THE ROSE OF THE WORLD 

On noonday's azure permanence ; 
Pure dignity, composure, ease 

Declare affections nobly fix'd. 
And impulse sprung from due degrees 

Of sense and spirit sweetly mix'd. 
Her modesty, her chiefest grace. 

The cestus clasping Venus' side. 
How potent to deject the face 

Of him who would affront its pride ! 
Wrong dares not in her presence speak. 

Nor spotted thought its taint disclose 
Under the protest of a cheek 

Outbragging Nature's boast the rose. 
In mind and manners how discreet ; 

How arcless in her very art ; 
How candid in discourse ; how sweet 

The concord of her lips and heart ; 
How simple and how circumspect ; 

How subtle and how fancy-free ; 
Though sacred to her love, how deck'd 

With unexclusive courtesy ; 
How quick in talk to see from far 

The way to vanquish or evade ; 
How able her persuasions are 

To prove, her reasons to persuade ; 
How (not to call true instinct's bent 



19 



THE ROSE OF THE WORLD 

And woman's very nature, harm). 
How amiable and innocent 

Her pleasure in her power to chaiTfn ; 
How humbly careful to attract, 

Tliough crown'd with all the soul desires. 
Connubial aptitude exact. 

Diversity that never tires. 



20 



THE LOVER 



He meets, by heavenly chance express. 

The destined maid ; some hidden hand 
Unveils to him that loveliness 

Which others cannot understand. 
His merits in her presence grow. 

To match the promise in her eyes. 
And round her happy footsteps blow 

The authentic airs of Paradise. 
For joy of her he cannot sleep ; 

Her beauty haunts him all the night ; 
It melts his heart, it makes him weep 

For wonder, worship, and delight. 
O, paradox of love, he longs. 

Most humble when he most aspires. 
To suffer scorn and cruel wrongs 

From her he honours and dc Jros. 
Her graces make him rich, and ask 

No guerdon ; this imperial style 
Affronts him ; he disdains to bask, 



THE LOVER 

The pensioner of her priceless smile. 
He prays for some hard thing to do, 

Some work of fame and labour immense. 
To stretch the languid bulk and thew 

Of love's fresh-bom magnipotence. 
No smallest boon were bought too dear. 

Though barter'd for his love-sick life ; 
Yet trusts he, with undaunted cheer. 

To vanquish heaven, and call her Wife. 
He notes how queens of sweetness still 

Neglect their crowns, and stoop to mate ; 
How, self-consign'd with lavish will. 

They ask but love proportionate ; 
How swift pursuit by small degrees. 

Love's tactic, works like miracle ; 
How valour, clothed in courtesies, 

Brings down the haughtiest citadel ; 
And therefore, though he merits not 

To kiss the braid upon her skirt. 
His hope, discouraged ne'er a jot. 

Out-soars all possible desert. 



HEAVEN AND 
EARTH 



How long shall men deny the flower 

Because its roots are in the earth. 
And crave with tears from God the dower 

They have, and have despised as dearth, 
And scorn as low their human lot. 

With frantic pride, too blind to see 
That standing on the head makes not 

Either for ease or dignity ! 
But fools shall feel like fools to find 

(Too late inform'd) that angels' mirth 
Is one in cause, and mode, and kind 

With that which they profaned on earth. 



THE LETTER 



' O, MORE than dear, be more than just, 

' And do not deafly shut the door ! 
' I claim no right to speak ; I trust 

' Mercy, not right ; yet who has more ? 
' For, if more love makes not more fit, 

' Of claimants here none's more nor less, 
' Since your great worth does not permit 

' Degrees in our unworthiness. 
' Yet, if there's aught that can be done 

' With arduous labour of long years, 
' By which you'll say that you'll be won, 

' O tell me, and I'll dry my tears. 
' Ah, no ; if loving cannot move, 

' How foolishly must labour fail ! 
' The use of deeds is to show love ; 

' If signs suffice let these avail : 
' Your name pronounced brings to my heart 

' A feeling like the violet's breath, 
' Which does so much of heaven impart 

24 



THE LETTER 

' It makes me amorous of death ; 
' The winds that in the garden toss 

' The Guelder-roses give me pain, 
^ Alarm me with the dread of loss, 

' Exhaust me with the dream of gain ; 
' I'm troubled by the clouds that move ; 

' Tired by the breath which I respire ; 
' And ever, like a torch, my love, 

' Thus agitated, flames the higher ; 
' All's hard that has not you for goal ; 

' I scarce can move my hand to write, 
' For love engages all my soul, 

' And leaves the body void of might ; 
' The wings of will spread idly, as do 

' The bird's that in a vacuum lies ; 
' My breasi,, asleep with dreams of you, 

' Forgets to breathe, and bursts in sighs ; 
' I see no rest this side the gi*ave, 

' No rest nor hope, from you apart ; 
' Your life is in the rose you gave, 

' Its perfume suffocates my heart ; 
' There's no refreshment in the breeze ; 

' The heaven o'erwhelms me with its blue ; 
' I faint beside the dancing seas ; 

' Winds, skies, and waves are only you ; 
' The thought or act which not intends 

25 



THE LETTER 

' You service, seems a sin and shame ; 
' In that one only object ends 

' Conscience, rehgion, honour, fame. 
' Ah, could I put off love ! Could we 

' Never have met ! What calm, what ease ! 
' Nay, but, alas, this remedy 

' Were ten times worse than the disease ! 
' For when, indifferent, I pursue 

' The world's best pleasures for relief, 

* My heart, still sickening back to you, 

' Finds none like memory of its grief ; 
' And, though 'twere very hell to hear 
' You felt such misery as I, 

* All good, save you, were far less dear 

' Than is that ill with which I die ! 

* Where'er I go, wandering forlorn, 

' You are the world's love, life, and glee : 
' Oh, wretchedness not to be borne 

' If she that's Love should not love me ! ' 



26 



THE REVE 
LATION 



An idle poet, here and there, 

Looks round him ; but, for all the rest, 
The world, unfathomably fair. 

Is duller than a witling's jest. 
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each ; 

They lift their heavy lids, and look ; 
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach. 

They read with joy, then shut the book. 
And some give thanks, and some blaspheme. 

And most forget ; but, either way. 
That and the Child's unheeded dream 

Is all the light of all their day 



27 



THE DOUBT 



The moods of love are like the wind. 

And none knows whence or why they rise 
I ne'er before felt heart and mind 

So much affected through mine eyes. 
How cognate with the flatter'd air. 

How form'd for earth's familiar zone. 
She moved ; how feeling and how fair 

For others' pleasure and her own ! 
And, ah, the heaven of her face ! 

How, when she laugh'd I seem'd to see 
The gladness of the primal grace. 

And how, when grave, its dignity ! 
Of all she was, the least not less 

Delighted the devoted eye ; 
No fold or fashion of her dress 

Her fairness did not sanctify. 
I could not else than grieve. What cause ? 

Was I not blest ? Was she not there ? 
Likely my own ? Ah, that it was : 

How like seem'd ' likely ' to despair ! 
28 



SECURITY 



But as we talk'd, my spirit quaff 'd 

The sparkling winds ; the candid skies 
At our untruthful strangeness laugh'd ; 

I kiss'd with mine her smiling eyes ; 
And sweet famihamess and awe 

Prevail'd that hour on either part^ 
And in the eternal light I saw 

That she was mine ; though yet my heart 
Could not conceive, nor would confess 

Such contentation ; and there grew 
More form and more fair stateliness 

Than heretofore between us two. 



29 



THE SPIRIT'S 
EPOCHS 



Not in the crises of events. 

Of compass'd hopes, or fears fulfiU'd, 
Or acts of gravest consequence. 

Are life's delight and depth reveal'd. 
The day of days was not the day ; 

That went before, or was postponed ; 
The night Death took our lamp away 

Was not the night on which we groan'd. 
I drew my bride, beneath the moon. 

Across my threshold ; happy hour ! 
But, ah, the walk that afternoon 

We saw the water-flags in flower ! 



30 



THE MAID 



She wearies with an ill unknown ; 

In sleep she sobs and seems to float, 
A water-lily, all alone 

Within a lonely castle moat 
And as the full-moon, spectral, lies 

Within the crescent's gleaming arms, 
The present shows her heedless eyes 

A future dim with vague alarms. 
She sees, and yet she scarcely sees. 

For, life-in-life not yet begun. 
Too many are its mysteries 

For thought to fix on any one. 



31 



ACCEPTANCE 



Twice rose, twice died my trembling word ; 

The faint and frail Cathedral chimes 
Spake time in music, and we heard 

The chafers rusthng in the limes. 
Her dress, that touch'd me Avhere I stood, 

The warmth of her confided arm. 
Her bosom's gentle neighbom'hood. 

Her pleasure in her power to charm ; 
Her look, her love, her form, her touch, 

The least seem'd most by blissful turn. 
Blissful but that it pleased too much. 

And taught the wayward soul to yearn. 
It was as if a harp with wires 

Was traversed by the breath I drew ; 
And oh, sweet meeting of desires. 

She, answering, own'd that she loved too. 



32 



BETROTHED 



What fortune did my heart foretell ? 

What shook my spirit, as I woke. 
Like the vibration of a bell 

Of which I had not heard the stroke ? 
Was it some happy vision shut 

From memory by the sun's fresh ray ? 
Was it that linnet's song ; or but 

A natural gratitude for day ? 
Or the mere joy the senses weave, 

A wayward ecstasy of life ? 
Then I remember' d, y ester-eve 

I won Honoria for my Wife. 



THE DANCE 



But there danced she, who from the leaven 

Of ill preserv'd my heart and wit 
All unawares, for she was heaven. 

Others at best but fit for it. 
One of those lovely things she was 

In whose least action there can be 
Nothing so transient but it has 

An air of immortality. 
I mark'd her step, with peace elate. 

Her brow more beautiful than morn. 
Her sometime look of girlish state 

Which sweetly waived its right to scorn 
The giddy crowd, she grave the while. 

Although, as 'twere beyond her will. 
Around her mouth the baby smile. 

That she was born with, linger'd still. 
Her ball-dress seem'd a breathing mist. 

From the fair form exhaled and shed. 
Raised in the dance with arm and wrist 



34 



THE DANCE 

All warmth and light, unbraceleted. 
Her motion, feeling 'twas beloved. 

The pensive soul of tune express'd. 
And, oh, what perfume, as she moved. 

Came from the flowers in her breast ! 
Ah, none but I discern'd her looks. 

When in the throng she pass'd me by. 
For love is hke a ghost, and brooks 

Only the chosen seer's eye ; 
And who but she could e'er divine 

The halo and the happy trance. 
When her bright arm reposed on mine. 

In all the pauses of the dance ! 



35 



ENTREATY 



' O Dearest, tell me how to prove 

' Goodwill which cannot be express'd ; 

' The beneficial heart of love 
' Is labour in an idle breast.' 



36 



THE REVULSION 



'TwAS when the spousal time of May 

Hangs all the hedge with bridal wreaths. 
And air's so sweet the bosom gay 

Gives thanks for every breath it breathes ; 
When like to like is gladly moved, 

And each thing joins in Spring's refrain, 
' Let those love now who never loved ; 

' Let those who have loved love again ; ' 
That I, in whom the sweet time wrought. 

Lay stretch'd within a lonely glade. 
Abandoned to delicious thought. 

Beneath the softly twinkling shade. 

And so I mused, till musing brought 
A dream that shook my house of clay. 

And, in my humbled heart, I thought. 
To me there yet may come a day 

With this the single vestige seen 
Of comfort, earthly or divine, 



37 



THE REVULSION 

My sorrow some time must have been 

Her portion, had it not been mine. 
Then I, who knew, from watching Hfe, 

That blows foreseen are slow to fall. 
Rehearsed the losing of a wife. 

And faced its terrors each and all. 
The self-chastising fancy show'd 

The coffin with its ghastly breath ; 
The innocent sweet face that owed 

None of its innocence to death ; 
The lips that used to laugh ; the knell 

That bade the world beware of mirth ; 
The heartless and intolerable 

Indignity of ' earth to earth ;' 
At morn remembering by degrees 

That she I dream'd about was dead ; 
Love's still recurrent jubilees. 

The days that she was bom, won, wed ; 
The duties of my life the same. 

Their meaning for the feelings gone ; 
Friendship impertinent, and fame 

Disgusting ; and, more harrowing none. 
Small household troubles fall'n to me. 

As, ' What time would I dine to-day ? ' 
And, oh, how could I bear to see 

The noisy children at their play. 

38 



THE REVULSION 

Besides, where all things limp and halt. 

Could I go straight, should I alone 
Have kept my love without default 

Pitch'd at the true and heavenly tone ? 
The festal-day might come to mind 

That miss'd the gift which more endears ; 
The hour which might have been more kind. 

And now less fertile in vain tears ; 
The good of common intercourse. 

For daintier pleasures then despised. 
Now with what passionate remorse. 

What poignancy of hunger prized ! 
The little wrong, now greatly rued. 

Which no repentance now could right ; 
And love, in disbelieving mood. 

Deserting his celestial height. 
Withal to know, God's love sent grief 

To make me less the world's, and more 
Meek-hearted : ah, the sick rehef ! 

Why bow'd I not my heart before ? 



39 



PRAISES 



I PRAISED her, but no praise could fill 

The depths of her desire to please. 
Though dull to others as a Will 

To them that have no legacies. 
The more I praised the more she shone. 

Her eyes incredulously bright. 
And all her happy beauty blown 

Beneath the beams of my delight. 
Sweet rivalry was thus begot ; 

By turns, my speech, in passion's style. 
With flatteries the truth o'ershot. 

And she surpass'd them with her smile. 

' Nature to you was more than kind ; 

' 'Twas fond perversity to dress 
' So much simplicity of mind 

' In such a pomp of loveliness ! 



40 



MARRIAGE 



FoRTHj from the glittering spirit's peace 

And gaiety ineffable, 
Stream'd to the heart delight and ease, 

As from an overflowing well ; 
And, orderly deriving thence 

Its pleasure perfect and allow'd. 
Bright with the spirit shone the sense. 

As with the sun a fleecy cloud. 



41 



THE ROSY BOSOM'D 
HOURS 



A FLORIN to the willing Guard 

Secured, for half the way, 
(He lock'd us in, ah, lucky-starr'd,) 

A curtain'd, front coupe. 
The sparkling sun of August shone ; 

The wind was in the West ; 
Your gown and all that you had on 

Was what became you best ; 
And we were in that seldom mood 

When soul with soul agrees. 
Mingling, like flood with equal flood. 

In agitated ease. 
Far round, each blade of harvest bare 

Its little load of bread ; 
Each furlong of that journey fair 

With separate sweetness sped. 
The calm of use was coming o'er 

The wonder of our wealth. 
And now, maybe, 'twas not much more 

42 



THE ROSY BOSOM'D HOURS 

Than Eden's common health. 
We paced the sunny platform, while 

The train at Havant changed : 
What made the people kindly smile, 

Or stare with looks estranged ? 
Too radiant for a wife you seem'd, 

Serener than a bride ; 
Me happiest born of men I deem'd. 

And show'd perchance my pride. 
I loved that girl, so gaunt and tall. 

Who whispered loud, ' Sweet Thing ! ' 
Scanning your figure, slight yet all 

Round as your own gold ring. 
At Salisbury you stray'd alone 

Within the shafted glooms. 
Whilst I was by the Verger shown 

The brasses and the tombs. 
At tea we talk'd of matters deep. 

Of joy that never dies ; 
We laugh'd, till love was mix'd with sleep 

Within your great sweet eyes. 
The next day, sweet with luck no less 

And sense of sweetness past. 
The full tide of our happiness 

Rose higher than the last. 
At Dawlish, 'mid the pools of brine, 

^3 



THE ROSY BOSOM'D HOURS 

You stept from rock to rock_, 
One hand quick tightening upon mine. 

One holding up your frock. 
On starfish and on weeds alone 

You seem'd intent to be : 
Flash'd those great gleams of hope unknown 

From you, or from the sea ? 
Ne'er came before, ah, when again 

Shall come two days like these : 
Such quick delight within the brain. 

Within the heart such peace ? 
I thought, indeed, by magic chance, 

A third from Heaven to win. 
But as, at dusk, we reach'd Penzance, 

A drizzling rain set in. 



44 



VIND AND WAVE 



The wedded light and heat, 
Vinnowing the witless space, 
Vithout a let, 

Vhat are they till they beat 
Lgainst the sleepy sod, and there beget 
^erchanee the violet ! 
s the One found, 

Amongst a wilderness of as happy grace, 
^o make Heaven's bound ; 
5o that in Her 

Ul which it hath of sensitively good 
s sought and understood 
^fter the narrow mode the mighty Heavens 

prefer ? 
Jhe, as a little breeze 
i-'oUowing still Night, 
lipples the spirit's cold, deep seas 
nto delight ; 
3ut, in a while, 

t5 



WIND AND WAVE 

The immeasurable smile 

Is broke by fresher airs to flashes blent 

With darkling discontent : 

And all the subtle zephyr hurries gay. 

And all the heaving ocean heaves one way, 

T'ward the void sky-line and an unguess'd weal . 

Until the vanward billows feel 

The agitating shallows, and divine the goal, 

And to foam roll. 

And spread and stray 

And traverse wildly, like delighted hands. 

The fair and fleckless sands ; 

And so the whole 

Unfathomable and immense 

Triumphing tide comes at the last to reach 

And burst in wind-kiss'd splendours on the deat- 

'ning beach. 
Where forms of children in first innocence 
Laugh and fling pebbles on the rainbow'd crest 
Of its untired unrest. 



46 



BEATA 



Of infinite Heaven the rays. 
Piercing some eyelet in our cavern black. 
Ended their viewless track 
On thee to smite 
Solely, as on a diamond stalactite. 
And in mid-darkness lit a rainbow's blaze. 
Wherein the absolute Reason, Power, and Love, 
That erst could move 
Mainly in me but toil and weariness. 
Renounced their deadening might. 
Renounced their undistinguishable stress 
Of withering white. 

And did with gladdest hues my spirit caress, 
Nothing of Heaven in thee showing infinite, 
Save the delight. 



47 



IF I WERE DEAD 



' If I were dead, you'd sometimes say. Poor 
Child ! ' 
The dear lips quiver'd as they spake. 
And the tears brake 

From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. 
Poor Child, poor Child ! 

I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. 
It is not true that Love will do no wrong. 
Poor Child ! 

And did you think, when you so cried and smiled. 
How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake. 
And of those words your full avengers make ? 
Poor Child, poor Child ! 
And now, unless it be 

That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee, 
O God, have Thou no mercy upon me ! 
Poor Child ! 



48 



DELICI.E SAPIENTI^ 
DE AMORE 



Love, light for me 
Thy ruddiest blazing torch. 
That I, albeit a beggar by the Porch 
Of the glad Palace of Virginity, 
May gaze within, and sing the pomp I see ; 
For, crown'd with roses all, 
'Tis there, O Love, they keep thy festival ! 

But first warn off the beatific spot 

Those wretched who have not 

Even afar beheld the shining wall. 

And those who, once beholding, have forgot.. 

And those, most vile, who dress 

The chdmel spectre drear 

Of utterly dishallow'd nothingness 

In that refulgent fame. 

And cry, Lo, here ! 

And name 

The Lady whose smiles inflame 

The sphere. 

49 D 



DELICIiE SAPIENTIiE DE AMORE 

Bring, Love, anear. 

And bid be not afraid 

Young Lover true, and Love-foreboding Maid, 

And wedded Spouse, if virginal of thought ; 

For I will sing of nought 

Less sweet to hear 

Than seems 

A music in their half-remember'd dreams. 

The magnet calls the steel : 
Answers the iron to the magnet's breath ; 
What do they feel 
But death ! 

The clouds of summer kiss in flame and rain. 
And are not found again ; 

But the heavens themselves eternal are with fire 
Of unapproach'd desire. 

By the aching heart of Love, which cannot rest. 
In blissfuUest pathos so indeed possess'd. 
O, spousals high ; 
O, doctrine blest. 

Unutterable in even the happiest sigh ; 
This know ye all 
Who can recall 

With what a welling of indignant tears 
Love's simpleness first hears 
The meaning of his mortal covenant, 

50 



DELICI^ SAPIENTIiE DE AMORE 

And from what pride comes down 

To wear the crown 

Of which 'twas very heaven to feel the want. 

How envies he the ways 

Of yonder hopeless star. 

And so would laugh and yearn 

With trembling Hds eterne. 

Ineffably content from infinitely far 

Only to gaze 

On his bright Mistress's responding rays, 

That never know eclipse ; 

And, once in his long year. 

With praeternuptial ecstasy and fear. 

By the delicious law of that ellipse 

Wherein all citizens of ether move. 

With hastening pace to come 

Nearer, though never near. 

His Love 

And always inaccessible sweet Home ; 

There on his path doubly to bum, 

Kiss'd by her doubled light 

That whispers of its source. 

The ardent secret ever clothed with Night, 

Then go forth in new force 

Towards a new return. 

Rejoicing as a Bridegroom on his course ! 

51 



DELICI^ SAPIENTI^ DE AMORE 

This know ye all ; 

Therefore gaze bold. 

That so in you be joyful hope increased. 

Thorough the Palace portals, and behold 

The dainty and unsating Marriage-Feast. 

O, hear 

Them singing clear 

' Cor meum et caro mea ' round the ' I am/ 

The Husband of the Heavens, and the Lamb 

Whom they for ever follow there that kept. 

Or losing, never slept 

Till they reconquer'd had in mortal fight 

The standard white. 

O, hear 

From the harps they bore from Earth, five-strung, 

what music springs. 
While the glad Spirits chide 
The wondering strings ! 
And how the shining sacrificial Choirs, 
Offering for aye their dearest hearts' desires. 
Which to their hearts come back beatified. 
Hymn, the bright aisles along. 
The nuptial song. 

Song ever new to us and them, that saith, 
' Hail Virgin in Virginity a Spouse ' ' 
Heard first below 

52 



DELICIiE SAPIENTIiE DE AMORE 

Within the little house 

At Nazareth ; 

Heard yet in many a cell where brides of Christ 

Lie hid, emparadised. 

And where, although 

By the hour 'tis night. 

There's light. 

The Day still lingering in the lap of snow. 

Gaze and be not afraid 

Ye wedded few that honour, in sweet thought 

And glittering will. 

So freshly from the garden gather still 

The lily sacrificed ; 

For ye, though self-suspected here for nought. 

Are highly styled 

With the thousands twelve times twelve of unde- 

filed. 
Gaze and be not afraid 

Young Lover true and love-foreboding Maid. 
The full noon of deific vision bright 
Abashes nor abates 

No spark minute of Nature's keen delight. 
'Tis there your Hymen waits ! 
There where in courts afar, all unconfused, they 

crowd. 
As fumes the starlight soft 

53 



DELICI^ SAPIENTI^ DE AMORE 

In gulfs of cloud. 

And each to the other, well-content. 

Sighs oft, 

' 'Twas this we meant ! ' 

Gaze without blame 

Ye in whom living Love yet blushes for dead 

shame. 
There of pure Virgins none 
Is fairer seen. 
Save One, 

Than Mary Magdalene. 
Gaze without doubt or fear 

Ye to whom generous Love, by any name, is dear 
Love makes the life to be 
A fount perpetual of virginity ; 
For, lo, the Elect 

Of generous Love, how nam'd soe'er, affect 
Nothing but God, 
Or mediate or direct. 
Nothing but God, 
The Husband of the Heavens : 
And who Him love, in potence great or small. 
Are, one and all. 
Heirs of the Palace glad. 
And inly clad 
With the^bridal robes of ardour virginal. 

54 



MIGNONNE 



Whate'er thou dost thou'rt dear. 

Uncertain troubles sanctify 

That magic well-spring of the willing tear. 

Thine eye. 

Thy jealous fear. 

With not the rustle of a rival near ; 

Thy careless disregard of all 

My tenderest care ; 

Thy dumb despair 

When thy keen wit my worship may construe 

Into contempt of thy divinity ; 

They please me too ! 

But should it once befall 

These accidental charms to disappear. 

Leaving withal 

Thy sometime self the same throughout the year. 

So glowing, grave and shy. 

Kind, talkative and dear 

As now thou sitt'st to ply 

55 



MIGNONNE 

The fireside tune 

Of that neat engine deft at which thou sew'st 

With fingers mild and foot hke the new moon, 

O, then what cross of any further fate 

Could my content abate ? 

Forget, then, (but I know 

Thou canst not so,) 

Thy customs of some praediluvian state. 

I am no Bullfinch, fair my Butterfly, 

That thou should'st try 

Those zigzag courses, in the welkin clear ; 

Nor cruel Boy that, fledd'st thou straight 

Or paused, mayhap 

Might catch thee, for thy colours, with his cap. 



56 



MILDRED 



Mildred's of Earth, yet happier far 
Than most men's thoughts of Heaven are. 



57 



REJECTED 



' Perhaps she's dancing somewhere now ! ' 

The thoughts of light and music wake 
Sharp jealousies, that grow and grow 

Till silence and the darkness ache. 
He sees her step, so proud and gay, 

Which, ere he spake, foretold despair ; 
Thus did she look, on such a day. 

And such the fashion of her hair ; 
And thus she stood, when, kneeling low. 

He took the bramble from her dress. 
And thus she laugh'd and talk'd, whose ' No ' 

Was sweeter than another's 'Yes.' 
He feeds on thoughts that most deject ; 

He impudently feigns her charms. 
So reverenced in his own respect. 

Dreadfully clasp'd by other arms ; 
And turns, and puts his brows, that ache. 

Against the pillow where 'tis cold. 
If only now his heart would break ! 

But, oh, how much a heart can hold. 

S8 



LOVE IN TEARS 



If fate Love's dear ambition mar. 

And load his breast with hopeless pain. 
And seem to blot out sun and star, 

Love, won or lost, is countless gain ; 
His sorrow boasts a secret bliss 

Which sorrow of itself beguiles. 
And Love in tears too noble is 

For pity, save of Love in smiles. 



59 



DENIED 



The storm-cloud, whose portentous shade 

Fumes from a core of smother'd fire, 
His hvery is whose worshipp'd maid 

Denies herself to his desire. 
Ah, grief that almost crushes life, 

To lie upon his lonely bed. 
And fancy her another's wife ! 

His brain is flame, his heart is lead. 
Sinking at last, by nature's course, 

Cloak'd round with sleep from his despair. 
He does but sleep to gather force 

That goes to his exhausted care. 
He wakes renew'd for all the smart. 

His only Love, and she is wed ! 
His fondness comes about his heart. 

As milk comes, when the babe is dead. 
The wretch, whom she found fit for scorn. 

His own allegiant thoughts despise ; 
And far into the shining mom 

Lazy with misery he lies. 

60 



LOVE'S WILL 
BE DONE 



Not loss, not death, my love shall tire, 
A mystery does my heart foretell ; 
Nor do I press the oracle 
For explanations. Leave me alone. 
And let in me love's will be done. 



6i 



FIRST LOVE 
REMEMBERED 



As, ere the Spring has any power. 
The almond branch all turns to flower. 
Though not a leaf is out, so she 
The bloom of life provoked in me ; 
And, hard till then and selfish, I 
Was thenceforth nought but sanctity 
And service : life was mere delight 
In being wholly good and right. 
As she was ; just, without a slur ; 
Honouring myself no less than her ; 
Obeying, in the loneliest place, 
Ev'n to the slightest gesture, grace. 
Assured that one so fair, so true. 
He only served that was so too. 
For me, hence weak towards the weak. 
No more the unnested blackbird's shriek 
Startled the light-leaved wood ; on high 
Wander'd the gadding butterfly, 
Unscared by my flung cap ; the bee, 

62 



FIRST LOVE REMEMBERED 

Rifling the hollyhock in glee. 
Was no more trapp'd with his own flower. 
And for his honey slain. Her power. 
From great things even to the grass 
Through which the unfenced footways pass. 
Was law, and that which keeps the law. 
Cherubic gaiety and awe ; 
Day was her doing, and the lark 
Had reason for his song ; the dark 
In anagram innumerous spelt 
Her name with stars that throbb'd and felt ; 
'Twas the sad summit of delight 
To wake and weep for her at night ; 
She tum'd to triumph or to shame 
The strife of every childish game ; 
The heart would come into my throat 
At rosebuds ; howsoe'er remote. 
In opposition or consent. 
Each thing, or person, or event. 
Or seeming neutral howsoe'er. 
All, in the live, electric air. 
Awoke, took aspect, and confess'd 
In her a centre of unrest. 
Yea, stocks and stones within me bred 
Anxieties of joy and dread. 
O, bright apocalyptic sky 



FIRST LOVE REMEMBERED 

O'erarching childhood ! Far and nigh 

Mystery and obscuration none. 

Yet nowhere any moon or sun ! 

What reason for these sighs ? What hope. 

Daunting with its audacious scope 

The disconcerted heart, affects 

These ceremonies and respects ? 

Why stratagems in everything ? 

Why, why not kiss her in the ring ? 

'Tis nothing strange that warriors bold. 

Whose fierce, forecasting eyes behold 

The city they desire to sack. 

Humbly begin their proud attack ^ ^ 

By delving ditches two miles off. 

Aware how the fair place would scoff 

At hasty wooing ; but, O child. 

Why thus approach thy playmate mild ? 



64 



LOST LOVE 



Fashion'd by Heaven and by art 
So is she, that she makes the heart 
Ache and o'erflow with tears, that grace 
So lovely fair should have for place, 
(Deeming itself at home the while,) 
The unworthy earth ! To see her smile 
Amid this waste of pain and sin. 
As only knowing the heaven within. 
Is sweet, and does for pity stir 
Passion to be her minister : 
Wherefore last night I lay awake. 
And said, ' Ah, Lord, for thy love's sake. 
Give not this darling child of thine 
To care less reverent than mine ! ' 
And, as true faith was in my word, 
I trust, I trust that I was heard. 



6s 



AWAY 



The multitude of voices blythe 
Of early day, the hissing scythe 
Across the dew drawn and withdrawn. 
The noisy peacock on the lawn. 
These, and the sun's eye-gladding gleam. 
This morning, chased the sweetest dream 
That e'er shed penitential grace 
On life's forgetful commonplace ; 
Yet 'twas no sweeter than the spell 
To which I woke to say farewell. 
Noon finds me many a mile removed 
From her who must not be beloved ; 
And us the waste sea soon shall part. 
Heaving for aye, without a heart ! 

Beholding one like her, a man 
Longs to lay down his life ! How can 
Aught to itself seem thus enough 
When I have so much need thereof ? 



66 



AWAY 

Blest in her place, blissful is she ; 

And I, departing, seem to be 

Like the strange waif that comes to run 

A few days flaming near the sun. 

And carries back, through boundless night, 

Its lessening memory of light. 

Had I but her, ah, what the gain 
Of owning aught but that domain ! 
Nay, heaven's extent, however much. 
Cannot be more than many such ; 
And, she being mine, should God to me 
Say ' Lo ! my Child, I give to thee 
All heaven besides,' what could I then. 
But, as a child, to Him complain 
That whereas my dear Father gave 
A little space for me to have 
In His great garden, now, o'erblest, 
I've that, indeed, but all the rest. 
Which, somehow, makes it seem I've 

got 
All but my only cared-for plot. 
Enough was that for my weak hand 
To tend, my heart to understand. 

Oh, the sick fact, 'twixt her and me 
There's naught, and half a world of sea. 



AWAY 

Yet, latterly, with strange delight. 
Rich tides have risen in the night. 
And sweet dreams chased the fancies dense 
Of waking life's dull somnolence. 
I see her as I knew her, grace 
Already glory in her face ; 
I move about, I cannot rest,' 
For the proud brain and joyful breast 
I have of her. Or else I float. 
The pilot of an idle boat. 
Alone, alone with sky and sea. 
And her, the third simplicity. 
Or with me, in the Ball-Room's blaze. 
Her brilliant mildness thrids the maze ; 
Our thoughts are lovely, and each word 
Is music in the music heard. 
And all things seem but parts to be 
Of one persistent harmony. 
By which I'm made divinely bold ; 
The secret, which she knows, is told ; 
And, laughing with a lofty bliss 
Of innocent accord, we kiss ; 
About her neck my pleasure weeps ; 
Against my lip the silk vein leaps ; 
Then says an Angel, ' Day or night, 
' If yours you seek, not her delight, 

68 



AWAY 



' Although by some strange witchery 
' It seems you kiss her, 'tis not she ; 
' But, whilst you languish at the side 
' Of a fair-foul phantasmal bride, 
' Surely a dragon and strong tower 
' Guard the true lady in her bower.' 
And I say, ' Dear my Lord, Amen ! ' 
And the true lady kiss again. 
Or else some wasteful malady 
Devours her shape and dims her eye ; 
No charms are left, where all were rife. 
Except her voice, which is her life. 
Wherewith she, for her foolish fear. 
Says trembling, ' Do you love me. Dear } ' 
And I reply, ' Sweetest, I vow 
' I never loved but half till now.' 
She turns her face to the wall at this. 
And says, ' Go, Love, 'tis too much bliss. ' 
And then a sudden pulse is sent 
About the sounding firmament 
In smitings as of silver bars ; 
The bright disorder of the stars 
Is solved by music ; far and near. 
Through infinite distinctions clear. 
Their twofold voices' deeper tone 
Utters the Name which all things own. 



69 



AWAY 

And each ecstatic treble dwells 
On one whereof none other tells ; 
And we, sublimed to song and fire. 
Take order in the wheeling quire. 
Till from the throbbing sphere I start. 
Waked by the heaving of my heart. 

There comes a smile acutely sweet 
Out of the picturing dark ; I meet 
The ancient frankness of her gaze. 
That soft and heart-surprising blaze 
Of great goodwill and innocence. 
And perfect joy proceeding thence ! 
Ah ! made for earth's delight, yet such 
The mid-sea air's too gross to touch. 
At thought of which, the soul in me 
Is as the bird that bites a bee. 
And darts abroad on frantic wing. 
Tasting the honey and the sting. 

I grew so idle, so despised 
Myself, my powers, by Her unprized, 
Honouring my post, but nothing more. 
And lying, when I lived on shore. 
So late of mornings : weak tears stream'd. 
For such slight cause, — if only gleam 'd, 

70 



AWAY 

Remotely, beautifully bright. 
On clouded eves at sea, the light 
Of English headlands in the sun, — 
That soon I deem'd 'twere better done 
To lay this poor, complaining wraith 
Of unreciprocated faith. 



71 



RACHEL 



You loved her, and would lie all night 

Thinking how beautiful she was. 
And what to do for her delight. 

Now both are bound with alien laws ! 
Be patient ; put your heart to school ; 

Weep if you will, but not despair ; 
The trust that nought goes wrong by rule 

Should ease this load the many bear. 
Love, if there's heav'n, shall meet his dues. 

Though here unmatch'd, or match'd amiss ; 
Meanwhile, the gentle cannot choose 

But learn to love the lips they kiss. 
Ne'er hurt the homely sister's ears 

With Rachel's beauties ; secret be 
The lofty mind whose lonely tears 

Protest against mortality. 



72 



THE VOICE OF 
ONE I KNEW 



All the bright past seems. 
Now, but a splendour in my dreams. 
Which shows, albeit the dreamer wakes, 
'The standard of right life. Life aches 
To be therewith conform'd ; but, oh. 
The world's so stolid, dark, and low ! 
That and the mortal element 
Forbid the beautiful intent. 
And, like the unborn butterfly. 
It feels the wings, and wants the sky. 

But perilous is the lofty mood 
Which cannot yoke with lowly good 
Right life, for me, is life that wends 
By lowly ways to lofty ends. 
I well perceive, at length, that haste 
T'ward heaven itself is only waste ; 
And thus I dread the impatient spur 
Of aught that speaks too plain of Her 
There's little here that story tells ; 



73 



THE VOICE OF ONE I KNEW 

But music talks of nothing else. 
Therefore, when music breathes, I say, 
(And urge my task,) Away, away ! 
Thou art the voice of one I knew. 
But what thou say'st is not yet true ; 
Thou art the voice of her I loved. 
And I would not be vainly moved. 



74 



IN THE WOODS 



And then, as if I sweetly dream'd, 
I half-remember'd how it seem'd 
When I, too, was a little child 
About the wild wood roving wild. 
Pure breezes from the far-off height 
Melted the blindness from my sight, 
Until, with rapture, grief, and awe, 
I saw again as then I saw. 
As then 1 saw, I saw again 
The harvest-waggon in the lane. 
With high-hung tokens of its pride 
Left in the elms on either side ; 
The daisies coming out at dawai 
In constellations on the lawn ; 
The glory of the daffodil ; 
The three black windmills on the hill. 
Whose magic arms, flung wildly by. 
Sent magic shadows o'er the rye. 
Within the leafy coppice, lo. 



75 



IN THE WOODS 

More wealth than miser's dreams could show. 

The blackbird's warm and woolly brood. 

Five golden beaks agape for food ; 

The GipsieSj all the summer seen 

Native as poppies to the Green ; 

The winter, with its frosts and thaws 

And opulence of hips and haws ; 

The lovely marvel of the snow ; 

The Tamar, with its altering show 

Of gay ships sailing up and down. 

Among the fields and by the Town ; 

And, dearer far than anything. 

Came back the songs you used to sing. 

And, as to men's retreating eyes. 

Beyond high mountains higher rise. 

Still farther back there shone to me 

The dazzling dusk of infancy. 

Thither I look'd, as, sick of night. 

The Alpine shepherd looks to the height. 

And does not see the day, 'tis true. 

But sees the rosy tops that do. 

Debtor to few, forgotten hours 
Am I, that truths for me are powers. 
Ah, happy hours, 'tis something yet 
Not to forget that I forget ! 

76 



LEAH 



Your love lacks joy, your letter says. 

Yes ; love requires the focal space 

Of recollection or of hope. 

E'er it can measure its own scope. 

Too soon, too soon comes Death to show 

We love more deeply than we know ! 

The rain, that fell upon the height 

Too gently to be call'd delight, 

Within the dark veil reappears 

As a wild cataract of tears ; 

And love in life should strive to see 

Sometimes what love in death would be ! 

No magic of her voice or smile 

Suddenly raised a fairy isle. 

But fondness for her underwent 

An unregarded increment. 

Like that which Hfts, through centuries. 

The coral-reef within the seas. 

Till, lo ! the land where was the wave. 

Alas ! 'tis everywhere her grave. 



77 



HER COUNSEL 



Oh, should the mournful honeymoon 
Of death be over strangely soon. 
And life-long resolutions, made 
In grievous haste, as quickly fade, 
Seeming the truth of grief to mock. 
Think, Dearest, 'tis not by the clock 
That sorrow goes. A month of tears 
Is more than many, many years 
Of common time. Shun, if you can. 
However, any passionate plan. 
Grieve with the heart ; let not the head 
Grieve on, when grief of heart is dead ; 
For all the powers of life defy 
A superstitious constancy. 



78 



SPONSA DEI 



What is this Maiden fair. 

The laughing of whose eye 

Is in man's heart renew'd virginity ; 

Who yet sick longing breeds 

For marriage which exceeds 

The inventive guess of Love to satisfy 

With hope of utter binding, and of loosing endless 

dear despair ? 
What gleams about her shine. 
More transient than delight and more divine ! 
If she does something but a httle sweet. 
As gaze towards the glass to set her hair. 
See how his soul falls humbled at her feet ! 
Her gentle step, to go or come. 
Gains her more merit than a martyrdom ; 
And, if she dance, it doth such grace confer 
As opes the heaven of heavens to more than her. 
And makes a rival of her worshipper. 
To die unknown for her were httle cost ! 

79 



SPONSA DEI 

So is she without guile. 

Her mere refused smile 

Makes up the sum of that which may be lost ! 

Who is this Fair 

Whom each hath seen. 

The darkest once in this bewailed dell. 

Be he not destin'd for the glooms of hell ? 

Whom each hath seen 

And known, with sharp remorse and sweet, as 

Queen 
And tear-glad Mistress of his hopes of bliss. 
Too fair for man to kiss ? 
Who is this only happy She, 
Whom, by a frantic flight of courtesy. 
Bom of despair 

Of better lodging for his Spirit fair. 
He adores as Margaret, Maude, or Cecily ? 
And what this sigh. 

That each one heaves for Earth's last lowlihead 
And the Heaven high 
Ineffably lock'd in dateless bridal-bed ? 
Are all, then, mad, or is it prophecy ? 
' Sons now we are of God,' as we have heard, 
' But what we shall be hath not yet appear'd.' 
O, Heart, remember thee. 
That Man is none, 

80 



SPONSA DEI 

Save One. 

What if this Lady be thy Soul, and He 

Who claims to enjoy her sacred beauty be. 

Not Thou, but God ; and thy sick fire 

A female vanity. 

Such as a Bride, viewing her mirror'd charms. 

Feels when she sighs, ' All these are for his arms ! ' 

A reflex heat 

Flash'd on thy cheek from His immense desire. 

Which waits to crown, beyond thy brain's conceit. 

Thy nameless, secret, hopeless longing sweet. 

Not by-and-by, but now. 

Unless deny Him thou ! 



BONDS 



For, ah, who can express 

How full of bonds and simpleness 

Is God, 

How narrow is He, 

And how the wide, waste field of possibility 

Is only trod 

Straight to His homestead in the human heart. 

And all His art 

Is as the babe's that wins his Mother to repeat 

Her little song so sweet ! 



82 



TO THE BODY 



Creation's and Creator's crowning good ; 

Wall of infinitude ; 

Foundation of the sky. 

In Heaven forecast 

And long'd for from eternity. 

Though laid the last ; 

Reverberating dome. 

Of music cunningly built home 

Against the void and indolent disgrace 

Of unresponsive space ; 

Little, sequester'd pleasure-house 

For God and for His Spouse ; 

Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair. 

Since, from the graced decorum of the hair, 

Ev'n to the tingling, sweet 

Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet, 

And from the inmost heart 

Outwards unto the thin 

Silk curtains of the skin, 

83 



TO THE BODY 

Every least part 
Astonish'd hears 
And sweet replies to some like region of the 

spheres ; 
Form'd for a dignity prophets but darkly name. 
Lest shameless men cry ' Shame ! ' 
So rich with wealth conceal'd 
That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field ; 
Clinging to everything that pleases thee 
With indefectible fidelity ; 
Alas, so true 

To all thy friendships that no grace 
Thee from thy sin can wholly disembrace ; 
Which thus 'bides with thee as the Jebusite, 
That, maugre all God's promises could do. 
The chosen People never conquer'd quite ; 
Who therefore lived with them. 
And that by formal truce and as of right. 
In metropolitan Jerusalem. 
For which false fealty 
Thou needs must, for a season, lie 
In the grave's arms, foul and unshriven. 
Albeit, in Heaven, 
Thy crimson-throbbing Glov«f 
Into its old abode aye pants to go. 
And does with envy see 

84 



TO THE BODY 

Enoch, Elijah, and the Lady, she 
Who left the roses in her body's lieu. 
O, if the pleasures I have kno^vn in thee 
But my poor faith's poor first-fruits be. 
What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss 
Then shall be his 

Who has thy birth-time's consecrating dew 
For death's sweet chrism retain' d. 
Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned ! 



AURAS OF DELIGHT 



And Him I thank, who can make live again 

The dust, but not the joy we once profane. 

That I, of ye. 

Beautiful habitations, auras of delight. 

In childish years and since had sometime sense 

and sight. 
But that ye vanish'd quite. 
Even from memory. 
Ere I could get my breath, and whisper ^ See ! * 

But did for me 
They altogether die. 

Those trackless glories glimps'd in upper sky ? 
Were they of chance, or vain, 
Nor good at all again 
For curb of heart or fret ? 
Nay, though, by grace. 
Lest, haply, I refuse God to his face. 
Their likeness wholly I forget. 
Ah, yet, 

86 



AURAS OF DELIGHT 

Often in straits which else for me were ill, 

I mind me still 

I did respire the lonely auras sweet, 

I did the blest abodes behold, and, at the moun- 
tains' feet. 

Bathed in the holy Stream by Hermon's thymy 
hiU. 



87 



PSYCHE 



' What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak. 
What shame is in thy childish cheek. 
What terror on thy brow ? 
Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek ? 

And all thy life looks troubled like a tree's 
Whose boughs wave many ways in one great 
breeze.' 



88 



DAWN 



' Ah, say not yet, farewell ! ' 

'Nay, that's the Blackbird's note, the sweet 

Night's knell.' 
' Thou leav'st me now, like to the moon at dawr, 
A little, vacuous world alone in air.' 



89 



THE EDGE OF BLISS 



' Sadness and change and pain 

Shall me for ever stain ; 

For, though my blissful fate 

Be for a billion years. 

How shall I stop my tears 

That life was once so low and Love arrived so 

late ! ' 
' Sadness is beauty's savour, and pain is 
The exceedingly keen edge of bliss ; 
Nor, without swift mutation, would the heav'ns 

be aught.* 



90 



EROS 



* Accept the sweety and say 'tis sacrifice ! 
Sleep, Centre to the tempest of m}^ love, 
And dream thereof. 

And koep the smile which sleeps within thy face 
Like sunny eve in some forgotten place ! ' 



91 



AMELIA 



Whene'er mine eyes do my Amelia greet 
It is with such emotion 

As when, in childhood, turning a dim street, 
I first beheld the ocean. 
There, where the little, bright, surf-breathing 
town. 
That shew'd me first her beauty and the sea. 
Gathers its skirts against the gorse-lit down 
And scatters gardens o'er the southern lea, 
Abides this Maid 

Within a kind yet sombre Mother's shade. 
Who of her daughter's graces seems almost afraid, 
Viewing them ofttimes with a scared forecast. 
Caught, haply, from obscure love-peril past. 
Howe'er that be. 
She scants me of my right. 
Is cunning careful evermore to balk 
Sweet separate talk. 
And fevers my delight 

92 



AMELIA 

By frets, if, on Amelia's cheek of peach, 

I touch the notes which music cannot reach. 

Bidding ' Good-night ! ' 

And there Amelia stood, for fairness shewn 
Like a young apple-tree, in flush'd array 
Of white and ruddy flow'r, auroral, gay. 
With chilly blue the maiden branch between ; 
And yet to look on her moved less the mind 
To say ' How beauteous ! ' than ' How good and 
kind ! ' 

And so we went alone 
By walls o'er which the lilac's numerous plume 
Shook down perfume ; 
Trim plots close blown 
With daisies, in conspicuous myriads seen, 
Engross'd each one 

With single ardour for her spouse, the sun ; 
Garths in their glad aiTay 
Of white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay. 
With azure chill the maiden flow'r between ; 
Meadows of fervid green. 
With sometime sudden prospect of untold 
Cowslips, like chance-found gold ; 
And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze. 
Rending the air with praise, 

93 



AMELIA 

Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shout 

Of Jacob camp'd in Midian put to rout ; 

Then through the Park, 

Where Spring to livelier gloom 

Quicken' d the cedars dark. 

And, 'gainst the clear sky cold. 

Which shone afar 

Crowded with sunny alps oracular. 

Great chestnuts raised themselves abroad like 

cliffs of bloom ; 
And everywhere. 

Amid the ceaseless rapture of the lark. 
With wonder new 

We caught the solemn voice of single air, 
' Cuckoo ! ' 

Now would I keep my promise to her Mother ; 
Now I arose, and raised her to her feet. 
My best Amelia, fresh-born from a kiss. 
Moth-like, full-blown in birthdew shuddering 

sweet. 
With great, kind eyes, in whose brown shade 
Bright Venus and her Baby play'd ! 

At inmost heart well pleased with one 
another, 
Wliat time the slant sun low 

94 



AMELIA 

Through} the ploughed field does each clod sharply 

shew. 
And softly fills 

With shade the dimples of our homeward hills. 
With little said. 

We left the 'wilder'd garden of the dead. 
And gain'd the gorse-lit shoulder of the down 
That keeps the north-wind from the nestling 

town. 
And caught, once more, the vision of the wave. 
Where, on the horizon's dip, 
A many-sailed ship 

Pursued alone her distant purpose grave ; 
And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim street 
I led her sacred feet ; 
And so the Daughter gave. 
Soft, moth-like, sweet, 
Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk. 
Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk. 
And now ' Good-night ! ' 

Me shall the phantom months no more affright. 
For heaven's gates to open well waits he 
Who keeps himself the key. 



95 



AFTER STORM 



So lay the Earth that saw the skies 

Grow clear and bright above. 
As the repentant spirit hes 

In God's forgiving love. 
The lark forsook the waning day. 

And all loud songs did cease ; 
The robin, from a wither'd spray. 

Sang like a soul at peace. 
Far to the South, in sunset glow'd 

The peaks of Dartmoor ridge. 
And Tamar, full and tranquil, flow'd 

Beneath the Gresson Bridge. 
There, conscious of the numerous noise 

Of rain-awaken'd rills. 
And gathering deep and sober joys 

From the heart-enlarging hills, 
I sat, until the first white star 

Appear'd, with dewy rays. 
And the fair moon began to bar 



96 



AFTER STORM 

With shadows all the ways. 
O^ well is thee^ whate'er thou art. 

And happy shalt thou be, 
If thou hast known, within thy heart. 

The peace that came to me. 
O, well is thee, if aught shall win 

Thy spirit to confess, 
God proffers all, 'twere grievous sin 

To live content in less ! 



97 



VENUS AND DEATH 



With fetters gold her captivated feet 

Lay, sunny sweet ; 

In that palm was the poppy. Sleep ; in this 

The apple. Bliss ; 

Against the mild side of his Spouse and Mother 

One small God throve, and in't, meseem'd, another. 

By these a Death-in-Life did foully breathe 

Out of a face that was one grate of teeth. 

Lift, O kind Angels, Hft her eyelids loth. 

Lest he devour her and her Godlets both ! 



98 



SEMELE 



No praise to me ! 

My joy 'twas to be nothing but the glass 

Thro' which the general boon of Heaven should 

pass. 
To focus upon thee. 
Nor is't thy blame 
Thou first should'st glow, and, after, fade i' the 

flame. 
It takes more might 
Than God has given thee. Dear, so long to feel 

delight. 
Shall I, alas. 

Reproach thee with thy change and my regret ? 
Blind fumblers that we be 
About the portals of felicity ! 

The wind of words would scatter, tears would wash 
Quite out the little heat 
Beneath the silent and chill-seeming ash. 
Perchance, still slumbering sweet. 

99 



Loc 



THE MARRIED LOVER 



WhYj having won her, do I woo ? 

Because her spirit's vestal grace 
Provokes me always to pursue. 

But, spirit-like, eludes embrace ; 
Because her womanhood is such 

That, as on court-days subjects kiss 
The Queen's hand, yet so near a touch 

Affirms no mean famiharness. 
Nay, rather marks more fair the height 

Which can with safety so neglect 
To dread, as lower ladies might. 

That grace could meet with disrespect. 
Thus she with happy favour feeds 

Allegiance from a love so high 
That thence no false conceit proceeds 

Of difference bridged, or state put by ; 
Because, although in act and word 

As lowly as a wife can be. 
Her manners, when they call me lord, 

lOO 



THE MARRIED LOVER 

Remind me 'tis by courtesy ; 
Not with her least consent of will. 

Which would my proud affection hurt. 
But by the noble style that still 

Imputes an unattain'd desert ; 
Because her gay and lofty brows. 

When all is won which hope can ask. 
Reflect a light of hopeless snows 

That bright in virgin ether bask ; 
Because, though free of the outer court 

I am, this Temple keeps its shrine 
Sacred to Heaven ; because, in short. 

She's not and never can be mine. 



lOI 



THE AMARANTH 



Feasts satiate ; stars distress with height ; 

Friendship means wellj but misses reach. 
And wearies in its best delight 

Vex'd with the vanities of speech ; 
Too long regarded, roses even 

Afflict the mind with fond unrest ; 
And to converse direct with Heaven 

Is oft a labour in the breast ; 
Whatever the up-looking soul admires, 

Whate'er the senses' banquet be. 
Fatigues at last with vain desires. 

Or sickens by satiety ; 
But truly my delight was more 

In her to whom I'm bound for aye 
Yesterday than the day before. 

And more to-day than yesterday. 



I02 



THE LETTERS 



Let me. Beloved^ while gratitude 
Is garrulous with coming good. 
Or ere the tongue of happiness 
Be silenced by your soft caress. 
Relate how, musing here of you. 
The clouds, the intermediate blue. 
The air that rings with larks, the grave 
And distant rumour of the wave. 
The solitary sailing skiff. 
The gusty corn-field on the cliff. 
The corn-flower by the crumbling ledge. 
Or, far-down at the shingle's edge. 
The sighing sea's recurrent crest 
Breaking, resign'd to its unrest. 
All whisper, to my home-sick thought. 
Of charms in you till now uncaught. 
Or only caught as dreams, to die 
Ere they were own'd by memory. 
High and ingenious Decree 



103 



THE LETTERS 

Of joy-devising Deity ! 

You whose ambition only is 

The assurance that you make my bliss, 

(Hence my first debt of love to show 

That you, past showing, indeed do so !) 

Trust me, the world, the firmament. 

With diverse-natured worlds besprent. 

Were rear'd in no mere undivine 

Boast of omnipotent design. 

The lion differing from the snake 

But for the trick of difference sake. 

And comets darting to and fro 

Because in circles planets go ; 

But rather that sole love might be 

Refresh'd throughout eternity 

In one sweet faith, for ever strange, 

Mirror'd by circumstantial change. 

For, more and more, do I perceive 

That everything is relative 

To you, and that there's not a star. 

Nor nothing in't, so strange or far. 

But, if 'twere scanned, 'twould chiefly mean 

Somewhat, till then, in you unseen. 

Something to make the bondage strait 

Of you and me more intimate. 

Some unguess'd opportunity 

104 



THE LETTERS 

Of nuptials in a new degree. 

But, oh, with what a novel force 
Your best-conn'd beauties, by remorse 
Of absence, touch ; and, in my heart. 
How bleeds afresh the youthful smart 
Of passion fond, despairing still 
To utter infinite good-will 
By worthy service ! Yet I know 
That love is all that love can owe. 
And this to offer is no less 
Of worth, in kind speech or caress. 
Than if my Hfe-blood I should give. 
For good is God's prerogative. 
And Love's deed is but to prepare 
The flatter'd, dear Belov'd to dare 
Acceptance of His gifts. When first 
On me your happy beauty burst, 
Honoria, verily it seem'd 
That naught beyond you could be dream'd 
Of beauty and of heaven's delight. 
Zeal of an unknown infinite 
Yet bade me ever wish you more 
Beatified than e'er before. 
Angehcal were your replies 
To my prophetic flatteries ; 
And sweet was the compulsion strong 



105 



THE LETTERS 

That drew me in the course along 
Of heaven's increasing bright allure. 
With provocations fresh of your 
Victorious capacity. 
Whither may love, so fledged, not fly ? 

Did not mere Earth hold fast the string 
Of this celestial soaring thing. 
So measure and make sensitive. 
And still, to the nerves, nice notice give 
Of each minutest increment 
Of such interminable ascent. 
The heart would lose all count, and beat 
Unconscious of a height so sweet. 
And the spirit-pursuing senses strain 
Their steps on the starry track in vain ! 
But, reading now the note just come. 
With news of you, the babes, and home, 
I think, and say, ' To-morrow eve 
' With kisses me will she receive ; * 
And, thinking, for extreme delight 
Of love's extremes, I laugh outright. 

Dearest, my Love and Wife, 'tis long 
Ago I closed the unfinish'd song 
Which never could be finish'd ; nor 
Will ever Poet utter more 

io6 



THE LETTERS 

Of love than I did, watching well 
To lure to speech the unspeakable ! 
' Why J having won her, do I woo ? * 
That final strain to the last height flew 
Of written joy, which wants the smile 
And voice that are, indeed, the while 
They last, the very things you speak, 
Honoria, who mak'st music weak 
With ways that say, ' Shall I not be 
' As kind to all as Heaven to me ? ' 
And yet, ah, twenty-fold my Bride ! 
Rising, this twentieth festal-tide. 
You still soft sleeping, on this day 
Of days, some words I long to say. 
Some words superfluously sweet 
Of fresh assurance, thus to greet 
Your waking eyes, which never grow 
Weary of telling what I know 
So well, yet only well enough 
To wish for further news thereof. 

How sing of such things save to her. 
Love's self, so love's interpreter ? 
How the supreme rewards confess 
Which crown the austere voluptuousness 
Of heart, that earns, in midst of wealth. 



107 



THE LETTERS 

The appetite of want and health, 

Rehnquishes the pomp of life 

And beauty to the pleasant Wife 

At home, and does all joy despise 

As out of place but in her eyes ? 

How praise the years and gravity 

That make each favour seem to be 

A lovelier weakness for her lord ? 

And, ah, how find the tender word 

To tell aright of love that glows 

The fairer for the fading rose ? 

Of frailty which can weight the arm 

To lean with thrice its girlish charm ? 

Of grace which, like this autumn day. 

Is not the sad one of decay. 

Yet one whose pale brow pondereth 

The far-off majesty of death ? 

How tell the crowd, whom passion 

rends. 
That love grows mild as it ascends ? 
That joy's most high and distant mood 
Is lost, not found, in dancing blood ; 
Albeit kind acts and smiling eyes. 
And all those fond realities 
Which are love's words, in us mean more 
Delight than twenty years before ? 

1 08 



ONE SPRING 



For many a dreadful day. 
In sea-side lodgings sick she lay. 
Noteless of love, nor seem'd to hear 
The sea, on one side, thundering near. 
Nor, on the other, the loud Ball 
Held nightly in the public hall ; 
Nor vex'd they my short slumbers, though 
I woke up if she breathed too low. 
Thus, for three months, with terrors rife. 
The pending of her precious life 
I watch'd o'er ; and the danger, at last. 
The kind Physician said, was past. 
Howbeit, for seven harsh weeks the East 
Breathed witheringly, and Spring's growth 

ceased. 
And so she only did not die ; 
Until the bright and blighting sky 
Changed into cloud, and the sick flowers 
Remember'd their perfumes, and showers 

109 



ONE SPRING 

Of warm, small rain refreshing flew 

Before the South, and the Park grew, 

In three nights, thick with green. Then she 

Revived, no less than flower and tree. 

In the mild air, and, the fourth day, 

Look'd supematurally gay 

With large, thanksgiving eyes, that shone. 

The while I tied her bonnet on. 

So that I led her to the glass. 

And bade her see how fair she was. 

And how love visibly could shine. 

Profuse of hers, desiring mine. 

And mindful I had loved her most 

When beauty seem'd a vanish'd boast. 

She laugh'd. I press'd her then to me. 

Nothing but soft humility ; 

Nor e'er enhanced she with such charms 

Her acquiescence in my arms. 



no 



MA BELLE 



Farewell, dear Heart ! Since needs it must I 

go, 
Dear Heart, farewell ! 
Fain would I stay, but that I love thee so. 
One kiss, ma Belle ! 

What hope lies in the Land we do not know 
Who, Dear, can tell ? 

But thee I love, and let thy plaint be, ' Lo, 
He loved me well ! ' 



III 



A FAREWELL 



With all my will, but much against my heart. 

We two now part. 

My Very Dear, 

Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. 

It needs no art. 

With faint, averted feet 

And many a tear. 

In our opposed paths to persevere. 

Go thou to East, I West. 

We will not say 

There's any hope, it is so far away. 

But, O, My Best, 

When the one darling of our widowhead. 

The nursling Grief, 

Is dead. 

And no dews blur our eyes 

To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies. 

Perchance we may. 

Where now this night is day. 



112 



A FAREWELL 

And even through faith of still averted feet. 
Making full circle of our banishment. 
Amazed meet ; 

The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet 
Seasoning the termless feast of our content 
With tears of recognition never dry. 



113 



DEPARTURE 



It was not like your great and gracious ways ! 

Do you, that have nought other to lament. 

Never, my Love, repent 

Of how, that July afternoon. 

You went. 

With sudden, unintelligible phrase. 

And frighten'd eye. 

Upon your journey of so many days. 

Without a single kiss, or a good-bye ? 

I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon ; 

And so we sate, within the low sun's rays. 

You whispering to me, for your voice was weak. 

Your harrowing praise. 

Well, it was well. 

To hear you such things speak. 

And I could tell 

What made your eyes a growing gloom of love. 

As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. 

And it was like your great and gracious ways 

114 



DEPARTURE 

To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, 

Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash 

To let the laughter flash. 

Whilst I drew near. 

Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely 

hear. 
But all at once to leave me at the last. 
More at the wonder than the loss aghast. 
With huddled, unintelligible phrase. 
And frighten'd eye. 
And go your journey of all days 
With not one kiss, or a good-bye. 
And the only loveless look the look with which 

you pass'd : 
'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. 



115 



THE AZALEA 



There, where the sun shines first 
Against our room_, 

She train'd the gold Azalea, whose perfume 
She, Spring-like, from her breathing grace dis- 
persed. 
Last night the delicate crests of saffron bloom. 
For this their dainty likeness watch'd and nurst. 
Were just at point to burst. 
At dawn I dream'd, O God, that she was dead. 
And groan'd aloud upon my wretched bed. 
And waked, ah, God, and did not waken her. 
But lay, with eyes still closed. 
Perfectly bless'd in the delicious sphere 
By which I knew so well that she was near. 
My heart to speechless thankfulness composed. 
Till 'gan to stir 

A dizzy somewhat in my troubled head — 
It was the azalea's breath, and she was dead ! 
The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed, 

ii6 



THE AZALEA 

And I had fall'ii asleep with to my breast 

A chance-found letter press'd 

In which she said, 

' So, till to-morrow eve, my Own, adieu ! 

Parting's well-paid with soon again to meet. 

Soon in your arms to feel so small and sweet. 

Sweet to myself that am so sweet to you ! * 



117 



EURYDICE 



Is this the portent of the day nigh past. 

And of a restless grave 

O'er which the eternal sadness gathers fast ; 

Or but the heaped wave 

Of some chance, wandering tide. 

Such as that world of awe 

Whose circuit, listening to a foreign law. 

Conjunctures ours at unguess'd dates and wide. 

Does in the Spirit's tremulous ocean draw. 

To pass unfateful on, and so subside .'' 

Thee, whom ev'n more than Heaven loved I 

have. 
And yet have not been true 
Even to thee, 

I, dreaming, night by night, seek now to see. 
And, in a mortal sorrow, still pursue 
Thro' sordid streets and lanes 
And houses brown and bare 
And many a haggard stair 

ii8 



EURYDICE 

Ochrous with ancient stains. 

And infamous doors, opening on hapless rooms. 

In whose unhaunted glooms 

Dead pauper generations, witless of the sun. 

Their course have run ; 

And ofttimes my pursuit 

Is check'd of its dear fruit 

By things brimful of hate, my kith and kin. 

Furious that I should keep 

Their forfeit power to weep. 

And mock, with living fear, their mournful malice 

thin. 
But ever, at the last, my way I win 
To where, with perfectly sad patience, nurst 
By sorry comfort of assured worst, 
Ingrain'd in fretted cheek and lips that pine. 
On pallet poor 
Thou lyest, stricken sick. 
Beyond love's cure. 

By all the world's neglect, but chiefly mine. 
Then sweetness, sweeter than my tongue can 

tell. 
Does in my bosom well. 
And tears come free and quick 
And more and more abound 
For piteous passion keen at naving found, 

119 



EURYDICE 

After exceeding ill, a little <yood ; 

A little good 

Which, foi the while. 

Fleets with the current sorrow of the blood. 

Though no good here has heart enough to smile. 



120 



THE DAY AFTER 
TO-MORROW 



Perchance she droops within the hollow gulf 

Which the great wave of coming pleasure draws. 

Not guessing the glad cause ! 

Ye Clouds that on your endless journey go, 

Ye Winds that westward flow. 

Thou heaving Sea 

That heav'st 'twixt her and me. 

Tell her I come ; 

Then only sigh your pleasure, and be dumb ; 

For the sweet secret of our either self 

We know. 

Tell her I come. 

And let her heart be still'd. 

One day's controlled hope, and then one more. 

And on the third our lives shall be fulfill'd ! 

Yet all has been before : 

Palm placed in palm, twin smiles, and words 

astray. 
What other should we say ? 



THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW 

But shall I not^ with ne'er a sign, perceive. 

Whilst her sweet hands I hold. 

The myriad threads and meshes manifold 

Which Love shall round her weave : 

The pulse in that vein making alien pause 

And varying beats from this ; 

Down each long finger felt, a differing strand 

Of silvery welcome bland ; 

And in her breezy palm 

And silken wrist. 

Beneath the touch of my like numerous bliss 

Complexly kiss'd, 

A diverse and distinguishable calm ? 

What should we say ! 

It all has been before ; 

And yet our lives shall now be first fulfill'd. 

And into their summ'd sweetness fall distill'd 

One sweet drop more ; 

One sweet drop more, in absolute increase 

Of unrelapsing peace. 

O, heaving Sea, 
That heav'st as if for bliss of her and me. 
And separatest not dear heart from heart. 
Though each 'gainst other beats too far apart. 
For yet awhile 
Let it not seem that I 'behold her smile. 

122 



THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW 

O, weary Love, O, folded to her breast. 

Love in each moment years and years of rest. 

Be calm, as bemg not. 

Ye oceans of intolerable delight. 

The blazing photosphere of central Night, 

Be ye forgot. 

Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bHss coy. 

Let me not see thee toy. 

O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense 

Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense ; 

O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand 

Is more of hope than heart can understand ; 

Perturb my golden patience not with joy. 

Nor, through a wish, profane 

The peace that should pertain 

To him who does by her attraction move. 

Has all not been before ? 

One day's controlled hope, and one again. 

And then the third, and ye shall have the rein, 

O Life, Death, Terror, Love ! 

But soon let your unrestful rapture cease. 

Ye flaming Ethers thin. 

Condensing till the abiding sweetness win 

One sweet drop more ; 

One sweet drop more in the measureless increase 

Of honied peace. 

123 



TIRED MEMORY 



The stony rock of death's insensibility 

Weird yet awhile with honey of thy love 

And then was dry ; 

Nor could thy picture^ nor thine empty glove. 

Nor all thy kind, long letters, nor the band 

Which really spann'd 

Thy body chaste and warm. 

Henceforward move 

Upon the stony rock their wearied charm. 

At last, then, thou wast dead. 

Yet would I not despair. 

But wrought my daily task, and daily said 

Many and many a fond, unfeeling prayer. 

To keep my vows of faith to thee from harm 

In vain. 

' For 'tis,' I said, ' all one. 

The wilful faith, which has no joy or pain. 

As if 'twere none.* 

Then look'd I miserably round 

124 



TIRED MEMORY 

If aught of duteous love were left undone. 

And nothing found. 

But, kneeling in a Church one Easter-Day, 

It came to me to say : 

' Though there is no intelligible rest. 

In Earth or Heaven, 

For me, but on her breast, 

I yield her up, again to have her given, 

Or not, as. Lord, Thou wilt, and that for aye.' 

And the same night, in slumber lying, 

I, who had dream'd of thee as sad and sick and 

dying. 
And only so, nightly for all one year. 
Did thee, my own most Dear, 
Possess, 

In gay, celestial beauty nothing coy. 
And felt thy soft caress 
With heretofore unknown reality of joy. 
But, in our mortal air. 

None thrives for long upon the happiest dream. 
And fresh despair 

Bade me seek round afresh for some extreme 
Of unconceiv'd, interior sacrifice 
Whereof the smoke might rise 
To God, and 'mind him that one pray'd below. 
And so, 

125 



TIRED MEMORY 

In agony^ I cried : 

* My Lord, if thy strange will be this. 

That I should crucify my heart. 

Because my love has also been my pride, 

I do submit, if I saw how, to bliss 

Wherein She has no part/ 

And I was heard. 

And taken at my own remorseless word. 

O, my most Dear, 

Was't treason, as I fear ? 

'Twere that, and worse, to plead thy veiled mind. 

Kissing thy babes, and murmuring in mine ear, 

' Thou canst not be 

Faithful to God, and faithless unto me ! ' 

Ah, prophet kind ! 

I heard, all dumb and blind 

With tears of protest ; and I cannot see 

But faith was broken. Yet, as I have said. 

My heart was dead. 

Dead of devotion and tired memory. 

When a strange grace of thee 

In a fair stranger, as I take it, bred 

To her some tender heed. 

Most innocent 

Of purpose therewith blent. 

And pure of faith, I think, to thee ; yet such 

126 



TIRED MEMORY 

That the pale reflex of an alien love. 

So vaguely, sadly shown. 

Did her heart touch 

Above 

All that, till then, had wooed her for its own. 

And so the fear, which is love's chilly dawn, 

Flush'd faintly upon lids that droop'd like thine. 

And made me weak. 

By thy delusive likeness doubly drawn. 

And Nature's long suspended breath of flame 

Persuading soft, and whispering Duty's name. 

Awhile to smile and speak 

With this thy Sister sweet, and therefore mine ; 

Thy Sister sweet. 

Who bade the wheels to stir 

Of sensitive delight in the poor brain. 

Dead of devotion and tired memory. 

So that I lived again. 

And, strange to aver. 

With no relapse into the void inane. 

For thee ; 

But (treason was't ?) for thee and also her. 



127 



THE TOYS 



My little Sorij who look'd from thoughtful eyes 

And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise. 

Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, 

I struck him, and dismiss'd 

With hard words and unkiss'd. 

His Mother, who was patient, being dead. 

Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 

I visited his bed. 

But found him slumbering deep. 

With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet 

From his late sobbing wet. 

And I, with moan. 

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ; 

For, on a table drawn beside his head. 

He had put, within his reach, 

A box of counters, and a red-vein'd stone, 

A piece of glass abraded by the beach 

And six or seven shells, 

A bottle with bluebells 



128 



THE TOYS 

And two French copper coins, rang'd there with 

careful art. 
To comfort his sad heart. 
So when that night I pray'd 
To God, I wept, and said : 
Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath. 
Not vexing Thee in death. 
And Thou rememberest of what toys 
We made our joys. 
How weakly understood. 
Thy great commanded good. 
Then, fatherly not less 

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, 
Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 
' I will be sorry for their childishness.' 



129 



WINTER 



1, SINGULARLY IDOVed 

To love the lovely that are not beloved. 

Of all the Seasons, most 

Love Winter, and to trace 

The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face. 

It is not death, but plenitude of peace ; 

And the dim cloud that does the world enfold 

Hath less the characters of dark and cold 

Than warmth and light asleep. 

And correspondent breathing seems to keep 

With the infant harvest, breathing soft below 

Its eider coverlet of snow. 

Nor is in field or garden anything 

But, duly look'd into, contains serene 

The substance of things hoped for, in the Spring, 

And evidence of Summer not yet seen. 

On every chance-mild day 

That visits the moist shaw. 

The honeysuckle, 'sdaining to be crost 

130 



WINTER 

In urgence of sweet life by sleet or frost, 

'Voids the time's law 

With still increase 

Of leaflet new, and little, wandering spray ; 

Often, in sheltering brakes. 

As one from rest disturb'd in the first hour. 

Primrose or violet bewilder'd wakes. 

And deems 'tis time to flower ; 

Though not a whisper of her voice he hear. 

The buried bulb does know 

The signals of the year. 

And hails far Summer with his lifted spear. 

The gorse-field dark, by sudden, gold caprice. 

Turns, here and there, into a Jason's fleece ; 

Lilies, that soon in Autumn slipp'd their gowns of 

green. 
And vanish'd into earth. 
And came again, ere Autumn died, to birth. 
Stand fuU-array'd, amidst the wavering shower, 
And perfect for the Summer, less the flower ; 
In nook of pale or crevice of crude bark. 
Thou canst not miss. 
If close thou spy, to mark 
The ghostly chrysalis. 

That, if thou touch it, stirs in its dream dark ; 
And the flush'd Robin, in the evenings hoar, 

131 



WINTER 

Does of Love's Day, as if he saw it, sing ; 

But sweeter yet than dream or song of Summer 

or Spring 
Are Winter's sometime smiles, that seem to well 
From infancy ineffable ; 
Her wandering, languorous gaze. 
So unfamiliar, so without amaze. 
On the elemental, chill adversity. 
The uncomprehended rudeness ; and her sigh 
And solemn, gathering tear. 
And look of exile from some great repose, the 

sphere 
Of ether, moved by ether only, or 
By something still more tranquil. 



i32 



L'ALLEGRO 



Felicity ! 

Who ope'st to none that knocks, yet, laughing weak, 

Yield'st all to Love that will not seek. 

And who, though won, wilt droop and die, 

Unless wide doors bespeak thee free. 

How safe's the bond of thee and me. 

Since thee I cherish and defy ! 

Is't Love or Friendship, Dearest, we obey ? 

Ah, thou art young, and I am gray ; 

But happy man is he who knows 

How well time goes. 

With no unkind intruder by. 

Between such friends as thou and I ! 

'Twould wrong thy favour. Sweet, were I to say, 

'Tis best by far. 

When best things are not possible. 

To make the best of those that are ; 

For, though it be not May, 

Sure, few delights of Spring excel 

^33 



L'ALLEGRO 

The beauty of this mild September day ! 

So with me walk. 

And view the dreaming field and bossy Autumn 

wood. 
And how in humble russet goes 
The Spouse of Honour, fair Repose, 
Far from a world whence love is fled 
And truth is dying because joy is dead ; 
And, if we hear the roaring wheel 
Of God's remoter service, public zeal. 
Let us to stiller place retire 
And glad admire 

How, near Him, sounds of working cease 
In little fervour and much peace ; 
And let us talk 

Of holy things in happy mood. 
Learnt of thy blest twin-sister. Certitude ; 
Or let's about our neighbours chat. 
Well praising this, less praising that. 
And judging outer strangers by 
Those gentle and unsanction'd lines 
To which remorse of equity 
Of old hath moved the School divines. 
Or linger where this willow bends. 
And let us, till the melody be caught, 
Hearken that sudden, singing thought, 

134 



L'ALLEGRO 

On which unguess'd increase to Ufe perchance 

depends. 
He ne'er hears twice the same who hears 
The songs of heaven's unanimous spheres. 
And this may be the song to make, at last, amends 
For many sighs and boons in vain long sought ! 



135 



A RETROSPECT 



I, TRUSTING that the truly sweet 

Would still be sweetly found the true. 
Sang, darkling, taught by heavenly heat. 

Songs which were wiser than I knew. 
To the unintelligible dream 

That melted like a gliding star, 
I said : ' We part to meet, fair Gleam ! 

You are eternal, for you are/ 
To Love's strange riddle, fiery writ 

In flesh and spirit of all create, 
' Mocker,' I said, ' of mortal wit. 

Me you shall not mock. I can wait.' 



^lA. 



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